Scent Psychology – Dove Soft Feel | AD

I am a big believer in scent psychology so when Dove approached me to see if I wanted to take on a little challenge around World Fragrance Day and the Dove Soft Feel range then I was definitely up for it. I really believe in how some scents will bring back memories, make you feel happy or even make you feel sad. So the link between how you feel and fragrance is very strong – but the biggest challenge from Dove is identifying the scents within the Dove Soft Feel to see if I could identify what makes it smell as lovely as it does.

Post sponsored by Dove

If you have read this blog before, you will know that I already have a lot of love for the Dove fragrance family. There’s something so soft and comforting about them – they have that clean, powdery scent that manages to be pretty and feel good all at the same time. The Dove Soft Feel range is specially designed to feel as soft as powder on the skin – so it doesn’t just smell good. Obviously this is helped along by the 1/4 moisturising cream in the formula that Dove is famous for. So it takes care of the skin whilst making it smell nice (no body wants sore, chafed underarms now do they?!)

The fragrance itself was developed by Givaudan – the luxury perfume house that is a global leader in the fragrance world. Which means it has a number of layers to combine into the scent of the final product. Which is where the challenge comes in – Dove sent me (or should that be ‘scent me’ … pun intended) a few little bottles of fragrance, each with a mystery label over then so I didn’t know what was in each one. Plus a blindfold – and of course the final product. My challenge was to smell each one and try and identify the notes. I thought I was getting quite good at picking out notes in perfume… but throw in a blindfold and it all goes to pot!

The only one I managed to identify correctly was Vanilla – which forever will remind me of baking cupcakes when I was younger (note to self: bake cupcakes this week… just try not to eat them all). I think that has to be the closest to pure vanilla – when baking with the extract. So smelling that one took me right back to baking cupcakes. The others I found much harder to place – both spring memories but didn’t quite get so far as naming what the scents were. Ylang was one that’s quite heady when you smell it on it’s own – it reminded me of burning incense in my teenage bedroom when I was going through a ‘I want to be a hippy’ phase. Then there’s Sandalwood – a fragrance I love, especially at home now as there’s something quite comforting about it. Then there was also a little mystery bottle that turned out to be ‘Soft Feel’ which is the magic combination that gives Dove Soft Feel that pretty, powdery, girly scent that comes together so well. In fact, there’s something about it that when I smell it it takes me right back to my grandma’s bathroom where she had all sorts of lotions and potions including a glamorous looking pot of talcum powder that always seems so luxurious to me! I love that smell.

Who knew that so much thought and detail went into something as essential as a deodorant?! I’ve always been a big believer in the basics though – just because it’s a basic, doesn’t mean it can’t be lovely to use too. If anything it needs to be even more lovely as it’s such a staple!

About Jen

Jen started A Beauty Junkie in London in 2009 as a little creative outlet. Since then her obsession with beauty & sharing little snippets of life online has built one of the most established UK beauty blogs.